Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Another wonderful day in Chacacal.
Chuck Shawver delivered the electrical supplies late last
night. We were up early and started working on the electrical. Our first task
was to pull the wire from the Temple to the education building/house. No easy
task without a fishing tape. We tried to use our air mattress pump to suck a
small piece of twine through the conduit, but to no avail. We finally pushed as
much through the conduit as we could and then we cut the conduit and began
again. It took a while, but we had the wire pulled and the conduit buried by breakfast
(about 9:00 a.m.). Chris and I wired the education building with three outlets
and two light bulbs.
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| Ready for School |
While we were working on the electrical, Michael B. and
Michael C. were working with the men of the village on the goat pen. They built
a shelter that was about 3 meters by 5 meters. They are waiting on the material
for the roof, but other than that, they were able to complete the pen. This
included building a gate (designed by Michael B.) and moving about two cubic
meters of soil to level the pen. (After seeing what they were working on, I was
glad I was doing the electrical.
Anywhere Chris goes, she has an entourage of three or four
little girls following along. It doesn’t matter if she is headed to the stream
for a bath, or to the bathroom, or to help move dirt, she has her little girls
with her.
After lunch (about 2:00 p.m.), we began working on rewiring
the Temple. They had cobbled together one light over the pulpit area, one light
bulb outside, and one outlet for the church. The wire to the outside light was
the old antenna wire. How it did not melt over the years is beyond my
understanding. We were able to get the lights wired and the
power turned on just in time. (We had to use headlamps and flashlights to make
the final connections.)
Al Bowie has been in Maravillas with Chuck and the two
electricians. When Chuck went for supplies today, he dropped Al off to work
with us. He spend the afternoon working with me to make sure that
I didn’t burn
the Temple down.
Story of the Day: Chuck has been working in Maravillas and
going for supplies. That leaves the four of us in Chacacal without a
translator. No one in the village speaks English and we only have very limited
Spanish skills. Eleasar was trying to explain to us why they didn’t have plans for
the animal shelters. After much gesticulation and several attempts, we finally
realized that he was saying that one of Pastor Mario’s sons had “ripped the
pages.” The next part we understood with little difficulty. The reason he tore
the pages is that he needed them for the baño.
We all bathed in the creek and headed up for dinner at
Pastor Mario’s house. Dinner consisted of black beans, pasta, jalapeños,
onions, and sweet coffee. Oh, and tortillas of course.
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| No longer homeless |
I am writing this with my computer plugged in while my phone
is charging. It feels good to have poer
again. Eleasar came in and asked if we were on Facebook.
A good day.
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